Forum:Whips: hold, pull, and flinch
Whips have been suggested a lot, apparently because of the MH manga (which I haven't read), but I thought I had a complete enough idea that it deserved it's own page, so here it goes. The basics: whips do cutting damage, but don't cut tails. That would be too overpowered, considering their special abilities. You can't use the whip's special abilities if it's sharpness is red. Whips would probably have decent base damage and a high crit chance. Sharpness levels, element and status damage are what I'm most unsure of. You can't block with a whip, but you can dodge and move as freely as you can with an SnS. You can't use items with your whip out. Whips have a very long reach, but do less damage the farther they are from the target. In appearance they could be simple straight whips, made of knotted or braided material, have bone or metal fragments sewn into them, or be sword-whips. You would hold them in a coil on your back, with the handle over your shoulder for easy access. When the weapon is at the ready, you would have the handle in one hand and a few loops of the whip in the other. The name of the game with whips is controlling monsters' movement. Think of it as a theme--after all, whips were originally used to control herds of animals, right? Whips do three main things: hold, pull, and quick flinching. You can of course just wail on monsters normally without using the special moves. Holding and pulling would be the same move, button-wise. You do the combo to grab the monster, then mash the attack button to keep hold of them. Whether you pull or hold them depends on the size of the monster and how much you mash. Small monsters would be easier to pull, and the larger the monster the harder it is to pull, so instead they're usually just held. Holding and pulling would drain the stamina bar at a faster rate than sprinting. When your stamina is depleted, you fail the hold. You can also fail a hold by not button mashing fast enough. Failing a hold or pull takes a chunk out of your stamina bar and causes the monster to drag you behind it for a few seconds, ending with you prone. In order to safely end a hold or pull, you press the guard button. Monsters take no damage from the whip while being held or pulled. Also, holding and pulling wears on the whip's sharpness. If more than one whip wielder is holding the same monster, they can only hold and not pull it (trying to figure out where a monster would move at all the possible angles would probably cause bugs). However, their stamina will deplete more slowly for each whip wielder in the hold, allowing the monster to be held for longer. Flinching is the other fun bit. Usually a monster only flinches when a body part has recieved enough of damage, but whips can cause flinching any time. Whips can't block, but they can cause flinching by parrying an attack. When a monster is attacking (and it's not raging), if the whip user times it just right, they can cancel the attack and cause the monster to flinch. This is risky, because if the timing is off, the user can't dodge. Not all attacks can be flinch-parried, though immunities would be specific to the monsters. Causing a flinch with a whip parry has no effect on when the usual flinching will happen. Any attack other than a hold can parry a move. Also, the parrying move must be the first in a combo. You can't just wail mindlessly hoping for a parry. And that's the basics of my whip idea. The only thing I have no idea on is how much elemental damage whips should do. Perhaps they should do only elemental and no status, or vice versa. A para whip would be the greatest thing ever, but possibly overpowered. Also wondering if perhaps whips should at least have a chance of causing elemental/ status damage during a hold? That's almost definately overpowered. Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas? 02:19, November 22, 2012 (UTC) Well, if the Hunting Horn worked by focusing on buffing allies, I suppose this could possibly work as a harassment tool if the grapple mechanics were balanced. I imagine the effectiveness of grappling would have to be limited by the size of monsters (you are NOT going to drag a Rathalos around on a leash), the Hunter's stamina, and possibly some kind of stress meter that, if filled, causes the monster to break free and sends the hunter reeling, possibly with lowered sharpness or attack power if the whip had "snapped". As for damage, I imagine it shouldn't get too high since this is meant to be a party support type thing and would probably have a decent range/attack speed if used for straight-up combat. Cobalt32 (talk) 00:07, March 30, 2013 (UTC)